The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is organising a three-day orientation programme at New Delhi from September 25 – 27, 2012 for policy makers from different cities of India and South Asia. The objective of this forum is to promote good regulatory practices in air quality management, clean vehicle technology, fuels and management of in-use fleet and mobility management. Managing urban air quality is turning out to be a serious governance challenge in cities. More than half of Indian cities are reeling under serious particulate pollution.

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) India and Bangladesh Institute of Planners, Bangladesh (BIP) Bangladesh jointly organised a day long workshop on lake conservation of Dhaka on August 7, 2011, The workshop was attended by researchers, activists, planners, advocates and regulators from both Bangladesh and India. The meeting was a first initiative to influence the policy debate on lakes in South Asia.

Sustainable mining is an oxymoron. Environmentalists will tell you this. Mining—coal to limestone—takes away forests, devastates mountains and leaves the land pockmarked. It also destroys livelihoods of people and displaces them. Worse, modern, mechanised mining takes away livelihood based on land but does not replace it with local employment—all estimates show that direct employment in the mining sector has fallen sharply. It provides wealth, but not for local development.

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in collaboration with the Ministry of Water Supply and Drainage (MWS&D), Sri Lanka and Colombo based NGO, Lanka Rainwater Harvesting Forum (LRWHF) organised a three day training programme in Colombo on ‘Urban Rainwater Harvesting’ for Srilankan government officials between 27th and 29th April, 2011.

It is now well recognised across the world that wealth generated by the mining sector comes at a substantial development cost, along with environmental damages and economic exclusion of the marginalised. This has also been exhaustively documented in India. In fact, the major mining districts of India are among its poorest and most polluted. Considering the negative externalities of the mining sector, new policies and practices are being explored and implemented across the world to ensure that mineral wealth can be converted into sustainable development benefits for local communities.

The dialogue on sponge iron industry organised in Kolkata, West Bengal on February 11, 2011 by the Centre for Science and Evnironment (CSE) saw participation from affected people, NGOs, media, industry and academicians.

The dialogue on sponge iron industry organised in Rourkela, Odisha on Januray 22, 2011 by Centre for Science and Evnironment saw participation from affected people, NGOs, media, industry and the Odisha State Pollution Control Board.

CSE, in collaboration with Ekta Parishad, conducted a roundtable in Rourkela (Kalunga) on the MMDR (draft) Act 2010. The objective was to expose the direct stakeholders like affected people and grassroot level NGOs to the draft act and the special provision of 'profit sharing'. The meeting was attended by stakeholders from the states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand. The meeting opened with a presentation from Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE on the provisions of the act and what they might imply.